‘You do not look good, Louis.’
Louis Khosa could barely make eye contact with his brother, especially as he stood now before him, victorious and decked out in all his military finery. ‘Let me go, Jean-Pierre. You have beaten me, but let me go. You will never see me again.’
‘If I let you go, you will come back with more men and kill me.’
‘No. One brother does not kill another.’
Jean-Pierre Khosa laughed. ‘That is a good one, coming from the man who would have had me hung and butchered like a pig, for the amusement of his Jew friends. Where is Mendel? I was looking forward to meeting him one last time.’
‘Mendel is gone,’ Louis Khosa said with a mournful shake of his head. ‘He cheated me and took all the money. Now there is nothing left. I even had to sell my gold rings,’ he added, looking at his hands.
Jean-Pierre Khosa rocked his head back, planted his hands on his hips, and filled the little room with his booming laughter. ‘The Jew was too clever for you, Louis. Did I not always warn you about him? I told you he was false. I told you he would deceive you and betray you in the end. But you would not listen to me. Me, your own brother, who loved you and looked after you all those years.’
Louis Khosa hung his head and looked pitiful. ‘I am sorry, Jean-Pierre.’
‘Do you know what is the worst thing about betrayal, Louis? It is to realise that the fault is your own. That allowing yourself to have been deceived is your mistake, because you were too weak and foolish to know you should never have trusted that person. This is how you feel now, Louis. And I understand, because it was how you made me feel when you chose to side with Mendel instead of your own brother.’
‘I am sorry, Jean-Pierre,’ Louis Khosa repeated, still shaking his head. ‘I made a mistake. I ask you to forgive me.’
‘Look at me, Louis. What do you see?’
Louis Khosa looked up with red-rimmed, liquid eyes, like a dog waiting to be kicked.
‘You see the man who has defeated you,’ Jean-Pierre Khosa said. ‘I am a leader now, and you are just a follower. I am strong, and you are weak. I am a lion, and you are just a worm. Say it.’
‘I am a worm.’
‘Say it!’
‘I AM A WORM!’
Jean-Pierre Khosa smiled. ‘And what do we do to worms, Louis? What else is there to do to such a pathetic and worthless creature? We squash them. We step on them, and we wipe their remains off our shoe.’
‘Please, Jean-Pierre. We are brothers.’
‘You broke my heart, Louis,’ Jean-Pierre Khosa went on, tapping his own chest with a finger. ‘But you also taught me a lesson, and for that I thank you. You taught me never to trust another man, even if he is my own flesh and blood.’ He pointed the finger at Louis, his eyes beginning to bulge now as they filled with rage. ‘Trust means nothing. That you are my brother means nothing. Flesh and blood are only good for eating. I have lived by this lesson. This is how I have made myself strong. Do you know what I trust, brother? I will show you what I trust. I trust this.’
Without breaking eye contact, he moved his right hand to his belt and drew out the big shiny Colt revolver. He held its muzzle under Louis’s nose and the man’s eyes widened in fear, thinking he was about to be shot.
But Jean-Pierre Khosa wasn’t ready to pull the trigger just yet. First, he wanted to show Louis the thing that he knew would crush him even more entirely than a worm squashed under his boot.
‘Now let me show you what else I trust, Louis.’
Slowly, savouring every second of these last moments together with the man he had once loved and now hated more than anyone in the world, Jean-Pierre Khosa replaced the revolver in its holster and reached into the pocket where the leather pouch nestled. His fingers closed on it and he took it out, clasping the pouch tightly in his fist, his eyes dancing at the thrill of what was inside. His sacred totem. The symbol of his absolute superiority and undying power to do whatever he desired, for as long as he desired it. Literally, the jewel in his crown.
Louis Khosa could only goggle as Jean-Pierre loosened the drawstring that held the pouch closed. Dipped his fingers inside, closed them with a thrill of excitement around the hard, cold object. With a flourish, he whipped it out for the condemned man to see before he was executed.
And then both men stared as one at the lump of plain grey rock on Jean-Pierre’s upturned palm.
Chapter 43
The General blinked, blinked again. He closed his fist around it and then reopened his fingers, as if by some conjuror’s trick the worthless rock might have vanished and the diamond reappeared in its place.
It had not.
Jean-Pierre Khosa almost fainted. He actually staggered on his feet. His brother was staring at him in total incomprehension, and the blank look in Louis’s eyes was more than Jean-Pierre could stand.
The guards posted outside the door with strict orders to let nobody enter heard the explosion of berserk fury inside the room and exchanged nervous glances, but knew better than to open the door. They had learned that the appropriate response to the General’s rages was to let them run their course and pray you didn’t become the target of his anger. But this one was like no other fit of rage they’d ever eavesdropped on before. An orgy of destruction seemed to be going on in there, as if a herd of wild rhinos had been let loose in the room and were trampling and smashing everything to pieces. It went on for several minutes before, eventually, it subsided. Not even General Khosa could keep up such a level of sustained superfury without suffering a fatal coronary.
When the peak of his wrath finally burned itself out, Khosa stood breathless in the wreckage of the room, stared at his bloody hands and then gazed down at the body of his brother on the floor at his feet. Louis’s skull was cracked and his brains had been beaten out. Khosa had no recollection of having bludgeoned him to death with the rock, which lay on the floor next to the body, slicked with blood.
But Khosa did recollect other things. Things that left him in no doubt as to who had stolen his beautiful diamond from him.
The miserable thief had stolen it before, from Pender, on the ship. He had wanted it for himself all along. This was why he’d escaped, and taken the American girl with him – just so he could take the diamond for himself! Yes, that was it. Of course it was. The sneaking little muzungu rat bastard had somehow managed to take it from him when he wasn’t looking. How or when, Khosa had no idea. But he knew it to be so, with absolute certainty.
He would go after him. There would be terrible vengeance. He would make him crawl like a limbless maggot on the ground. He would make him eat his own burnt organs. There would be suffering like no man had ever suffered.
Khosa clenched his bloody fists and screamed. ‘WHITE MEAT!! I WILL KILL YOU!!!’
Sixty miles south-west of Luhaka City, the muzungu rat bastard thief was getting increasingly worried.
Tuesday had told them Khosa’s base was in a building up the street, which seemed a likely place to find Rae’s photographic equipment. Tuesday had been right about it blowing their socks off. Neither she nor Jude were prepared for the experience of walking into a deserted luxury hotel in the middle of the Congo jungle. Jude, who had never seen the real London Dorchester, didn’t care if this was an exact replica or not. It was weird.
‘Probably built for the company top brass,’ Rae said as they stared at the marble-floored lobby.
‘Like Lijuan Wu?’
‘I just made her up. First name that came into my head.’
‘Could have fooled me. What about Zyu Industries?’
‘Oh, they’re real enough, all right. One day you’ll be reading all about them and their little schemes in the news. That’s if I ever find my stuff. It’s the only proof we have.’ She didn’t look hopeful.
‘At least we haven’t run into any more soldiers,’ Jude said, and touched the pistol in his belt. It felt odd being there. Maybe after about a hundred years of carrying it, he might get used to having a live fire
arm strapped to his side.
They hurriedly made their way to the top floor, where Tuesday had said Khosa had his quarters. ‘He might have stashed the stuff up here somewhere,’ Rae said. ‘We’ll start here and work our way downwards, okay?’
‘Tell me exactly what we’re looking for.’
‘A bunch of silver flight cases, a couple shorter with cameras inside, a couple of longer ones with the telephoto lenses and tripods. It’s just the small ones I want. One of them has the memory card in it, with the images of the mines.’
‘I’m on it,’ Jude said. ‘You take this end, I’ll check out the other rooms and we’ll meet in the middle.’
‘Got it.’
It was a busy search, but it was a fruitless one. Khosa’s suite contained everything a despotic warlord with a penchant for high living might ever want by way of trinkets and luxuries, but not a single camera and certainly none of the gear his men had confiscated from Rae and Munro. They’d been rummaging through the place for close to an hour when Jude’s walkie-talkie squawked, making him jump. It was Tuesday, saying he’d found what he thought was a viable aircraft and was working on it. The call was an uncomfortable reminder to them that the clock was ticking.
‘We’re wasting time here,’ Rae said, anxiously looking at her watch.
Working their way downwards through the hotel they ransacked laundry rooms, store cupboards, dozens of unused bedrooms, and found nothing. Finally reaching the ground floor, they spent far too long exhaustively searching the nest of passageways that led to the kitchens, the boiler room, and a series of cluttered storerooms.
Rae was almost weeping with frustration. ‘It’s got to be somewhere!’
Jude would have loved to say something to comfort her, but he couldn’t think what. Tuesday hadn’t been back in contact. Jude didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Either way, their three hours were almost up, and his anxiety was mounting. Rae was as focused as a bloodhound on the trail of her precious evidence. He could sense that she wouldn’t relent until she found it. Knowing how much it meant to her, he dreaded her reaction if he made a move to tear her away. Yet he couldn’t leave her alone in this place, and nor could he give up on Ben and Jeff. It was an impossible situation.
There were now just a few minutes left to resolve it in. Running out of time faster than they were running out of places to search. They’d narrowed it down to a few remaining storerooms and offices on the ground floor, and Rae was digging through boxes and crates and assorted junk like a rescuer searching for survivors in the rubble of an earthquake. Jude was on the verge of saying, ‘Come on, Rae, it’s no use,’ when a bolt of lightning flashed in his mind.
‘Captain Umutese,’ he said out loud. ‘That was his name.’
‘Whose name?’ Rae asked, glancing up with a frown.
‘Khosa’s officer. The one the soldiers were about to radio when they caught us back there.’
‘So?’
‘So they had a long-range radio in their Jeep. They were in touch with the rest of the army.’
Rae didn’t understand. Jude didn’t have time to explain. The idea was a hell of a long shot, but then so had been the one-in-a-million chance of getting his SOS email through to Jeff Dekker while all hell was breaking loose aboard the Svalgaard Andromeda, stranded out in the middle of the Indian Ocean with pirates swarming all over her decks, killing off the crew and dumping bodies in the ocean. Long shots had worked for Jude before, and this one might – just might – work too.
He took the gun from his belt and urgently pressed it into her hand. ‘Take this. Stay right here. Lock the door behind me. Anyone tries to get in, you shoot first and ask questions later, all right?’
Rae stared at the gun in her hand, not liking it. She looked up at Jude in alarm. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ll be back as quick as I can,’ he promised her, and set off at a run out of the building and down the street towards the Jeep.
Chapter 44
On the bullet-scarred corner of Rue Okapi and Avenue Laurent Kabila across the street from what was obviously now the residence of the former governor of Luhaka, an unseen figure watched from a shadowy doorway and counted the soldiers milling around the front of the building opposite.
Finding the spot had been easy – all Ben had had to do was follow the trail of dead men. The doorway he was using for cover belonged to the entrance hall of a large, comfortable townhouse whose owners must have fled at the first sign of trouble. Wisely so, because the house had taken quite a bit of fire during the exchange between the attacking army and the defending forces across the street. Its ground-floor windows were mostly reduced to empty frames, the front door was matchwood and the façade was going to need a lot of stone repairs. The owners had made their escape from the back door, not bothering to close it on their way out, which was how Ben had got inside.
By the time Ben had got here, the show across the street had already been pretty much over. Meanwhile the distant gunfire that had been crackling here and there across the surrounding city blocks had all but died out, dwindling to just the occasional solitary pop. The radio he’d taken from Umutese’s body spluttered and fizzed every few seconds, broadcasting snatches of jubilant back-and-forth dialogue in French and Swahili as the troops gained full control of the city. They sounded giddy with happiness at having won.
The outcome of the attack on Luhaka had probably never been much in doubt. But Ben would have advised the winners not to crack open the champagne too soon. Victory had a way of being snatched out from under you at the very last minute. Sometimes, all it took was a determined man with a gun, the skill to use it, and nothing left to lose. And there was one of those standing right across the street.
He took in the scene. What would normally have been a busy main boulevard filled with traffic and people was empty and hushed, as if the entire population of the city had died of plague overnight or suddenly emigrated to Venus. The only vehicles in sight were those Ben could see parked in a ragged formation at the foot of the white stone columns at the entrance to the governor’s mansion. One armoured car had led the assault, battering through the gates and soaking up the worst of the gunfire. Behind it was parked Jean-Pierre Khosa’s new Hummer, sporting a few bullet holes of its own but relatively undamaged. A motley procession of technicals had followed, with a second armoured car bringing up the rear.
The last stand of the governor’s personal guard had been brief but fairly intense, judging from the number of dead attackers strewn about the lawns. Their surviving comrades left outside to guard the entrance were leaning on their weapons, smoking and laughing and generally winding down from the adrenalin-pumped immediate aftermath of battle. Ben counted thirty-four of them, and reckoned there would be at least as many inside the building, if not more.
A lot for one man to go up against alone, but nothing compared to the numbers that would soon start appearing as the hundreds and thousands of troops currently still circling for blocks around, taking out the last scraps of resistance and merrily raping, looting, and pillaging for all they were worth, gradually recongregated around their leader.
As far as Ben was concerned, the time to strike was now.
He weighed up his options, of which he could see just three. The grounds were fenced off from the street by a high iron railing that ran eighty metres both ways up and down Avenue Laurent Kabila. Option A was to slip past the entrance and work his way quickly and quietly along the railing as far as the corner, then creep around the side of the building and look for a convenient way in. Which would be virtually impossible, even for him, to achieve without being seen. He discounted it right away.
Option B was to retrace his steps back a few blocks, find a side street running parallel to Avenue Laurent Kabila that wasn’t teeming with soldiers, and track round in a wider flanking manoeuvre to come at his objective from the rear, in the hope that he could slip inside the grounds and either set up a sniper position outside with a good view of the w
indows, or infiltrate the building.
Option B wasn’t much better than Option A, for four reasons: first, the extreme risk of getting nabbed by a street patrol before he even got close; second, the lack of an appropriate sniper weapon capable of picking off a target through a window at anything better than medium range; third, the reliance on pure luck in hoping Khosa would appear at a window in the first place; and fourth, the exposure while crossing the grounds in full view of the rear of the house.
And all of that was even before he got inside and faced the task of tackling an unknown and vastly superior number of opponents without any real firepower of his own.
So, as crazy as it seemed at first glance, Option C was his best bet. The attack needed to be swift, explosive, and direct, and bold strokes were called for. Option C ticked those boxes just fine. It involved him walking out of his doorway, straight across the street and in through the gate. They’d spot him right away, of course, but before anyone had time to react he’d surprise them with a one-man assault on the entrance, keeping up a steady walking fire and taking down as many men as he needed in order to get inside the rearward armoured car.
That would be Phase One, and he reckoned it was just about feasible if he didn’t catch an unlucky bullet.
Phase Two would be where the fun began. Ben ran the scenario through his mind, visualising it frame by vivid frame like a widescreen movie playing in slow motion inside his mind. Jumping in and locking down the hatch behind him. A fury of point-blank gunfire pinging and popping off the armour-plate shell, like being inside a metal drum during a hailstorm. Diving behind the controls, gunning the throttle and rolling straight towards the entrance of the mansion, crushing and battering its way through the vehicles blocking its path and not slowing for the doorway. The thick steel shell of the vehicle smashing past the columns, up the steps and right through the door, bringing down half the wall as it ploughed inside.
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